Borrowing History: HPL has moved to a new
library system. Please consider using the Completed
Shelf Feature. The Completed and For Later shelf features
are great ways to track what you've borrowed and what you would like to borrow. Borrowing history is limited to 500 items to improve site
speed and performance.

The Mighty Miss Malone

With love and determination befitting the "world's greatest family," twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression.

Opinion

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

This was wonderful book. My class of grade 5 did it as a book report and I could find out about and understand the struggle of African Americans during the great depression and why they suffered a great quantity of it. I recommend this to everyone who comes across this book or wants to understand the struggle of this time period.

It is a really good story and I love how Deza's problems are what really happened. It just sad what happens when they settled and they are having a really good time then something terrible happens. Things keep happening to the poor dad. But Deza is a strong girl and she can handle stuff like that. The ending is amazing.

I really loved this book because it incuraged me to never give up. I really thought that was a very important part of the book because the Malone family is doing everything they can to help one another even in tough times. This book kept me on my feet the whole way through!

Parents I believe this is a phenomenal book. The author of this book did a beyond great job writing this book. I was able to place myself in bits and pieces of this book, and parents that is something you want your children to do when they are reading a book. I totally recommend this book to anyone to read. Not just parents, but anyone. You will laugh, and even cry sometimes. Children go through a lot of different things and circumstances in their lives including poverty. This is a great eye opener book parents. And it is also an easy read.

The Mighty Miss Malone was a very interesting book. My favourite part of the book was when Deza and her Mother found their father and brought him home. I really enjoyed this part because you finally know that the Malone family was going to be okay if Jimmie continued to send money for them. One thing I thought that the author, Christopher Paul Curtis, could change, was how the book was so long. I also thought that the book should have a main idea that is more clear. It seems to me that Deza has a series of small problems that get solved instead of one big problem like most of the other story’s that I read. But I think that the author made the story with small problems so that the book is more realistic like everyday life that people can relate to.

“This was real. I looked at mother and got even scarder. The man said in a hoarse voice. My darling daughter Deza, don’t you recognize your delightful dad? Something was different. Something about the way shadows showed in my room.”

ELIZABETH RAMSEY BIRD
Feb 13, 2012

“The smell was like a living animal, it clawed at your nostrils and rubbed against your legs like a overfriendly cat.”

Summary

Living in the Great Depression times is hard for children. Deza, and her older brother Jimmie do not have much, but they make do with what they do have. In this heartfelt story told in the eyes of a little girl named Deza the story talks about determination, perseverance, and how just when you think life has given you all it could, something unexpected can come and bring you happiness.

ELIZABETH RAMSEY BIRD
Feb 13, 2012

If you were paying close attention to the book Bud Not Buddy then you might have caught a glimpse of a girl named Deza Malone when Bud stopped in a Hooverville for a while. Turns out that there’s more to her situation than meets the eye. A formidable student and smart gal, Deza spends much of her time defending her older (yet shorter) troublemaking brother Jimmie. But when their father has a horrible accident out on Lake Michigan everything changes for the worse. The man who returns to them seems like their dad but there’s something different about him. Before they know it he’s left town to find work, their landlord kicks them out of their home, and their mother is determined to go to Flint, Michigan to find Deza’s dad as well as some work of her own. Sometimes the biggest plans are the most difficult to carry out, though. And sometimes help comes from the most unexpected of places.